Reading Journal #2 : Maya Angelou & Dick Gregory

Once again I was torn between two stories that I connected with. While I read Maya Angelou’s interpretation of what went on behind closed doors between her mother and the dentist in Momma, the Dentist, and Me; I could see her shaking that ignorant man and putting him in his place. As a mother, I could identify with her and at the same time with Ms. Angelou’s view of her. I could also envision the injustice prevalent in those days. Equally I could feel the pain in Dick Gregory’s Shame. This is the story I will be doing my journal on this week because although the first story was humorous to me, I felt the pangs of Mr. Gregory’s Shame.

“I never learned hate at home, or shame. I had to go to school for that.” This is a powerful statement and I believe it to be Mr. Gregory’s thesis. He sets the stage for his reasoning while telling the story of young love which just adds to his humiliation. Once again the injustice of the era is like a character in itself. He is deeply ashamed not only of his family dynamics, but also of the stigma placed upon him because of his race and the fact that he is on relief; financial aid perhaps the predecessor to todays welfare system.

The ideas in this writing, to me, were to highlight the ignorance of society at the time. When he is speaking of the teacher and her belief that he is simply stupid, he compares his situation to being pregnant. He uses this paragraph to drive home the way it feels to be hungry and poor. The teacher believes he is a trouble maker when in all reality he is just a product of his situation. “Teachers were never interested in finding out that you couldn’t concentrate because you were so hungry…” is a poignant line. It’s easy to dismiss someone based on the image that society projects on to them.

He learned a cold, hard lesson by living this moment in time. This writing could have a number of purposes. It is informative in that it gives a powerful example of how discrimination is damaging to people using his own very personal experience. It is reflective in that he learned powerful lessons in his youth that he turned into fuel for his activism as an adult. I also feel that this writing could serve a purpose in allowing people to experience through his words what the other side is like. To feel what poor is, what minority is, what disenfranchised is. His gives the reader the experience which could persuade the one to reflect on their own beliefs and actions.
The line that affected me the most was “we know you don’t have a Daddy.” The supporting lines that followed to drive home the heartache this young man felt were: “…I couldn’t see her too well because I was crying, too.” And “…the whole world heard the teacher that day, we all know you don’t have a Daddy.” I did not enjoy these lines. They struck a nerve in me and I felt my heart ache. My son’s father is not in his life and I dread the thought that someone may say something similar to him one day.

I thought the author conveyed the pain of a young man dealing with discrimination on many levels, in a way that the reader can experience it through his writing. He successfully demonstrated the way people simply dismissed the downtrodden or those who were of a different race, rather than look deeper to see the roots of the issue. It’s a story that makes you think twice about your own behavior.

Some new vocabulary : mackinaw: a short double-breasted wool coat.